Category Archives: Education

If there is a defining interest throughout my career, it’s science and technology. I’ve written science fiction for magazines, reported on new science and tech developments for radio, television and newspapers, and consulted education and consumer technology companies.

So it may come as no surprise that I cherish my childhood memories of science — even as science itself is wiping them out, one by one.

Over at TechFlash, I’ve written a guest essay, “How Science is Destroying My Childhood.” It’s based on my Ignite Seattle 11 talk on the same topic but with a few facts I didn’t have time to slip into the five-minute Ignite presentation. No planets, dinosaurs or sea creatures were harmed in the writing of the essay.

Over at EdNET News Alert, I’ve summed up a fascinating conference session designed to get teachers to tell educational publishing execs exactly what they want from digital technology in the classroom. Some 300 execs at the Association of Educational Publishers’ Content in Context Conference heard 20 educators tell them directly, in videos they’d submitted, their successes, obstacles and desires for effective digital classrooms. Even if it’s anecdotal, it’s instructive.

Pulling this session together was a group effort: the teacher social network edWeb.net promoted and discussed the video submissions in their Classrooms in the Digital Age community; AEP managed the YouTube video uploads from the teachers in the Teacher Video Challenge playlist; and I had fun selecting the videos to be shown and weaving them together with a 90-minute panel and audience discussion at the conference itself.

That’s the reason I have for not posting for most of the vernal equinox quarter. Spring is rife with industry trade shows and conferences, as it is in pretty much any industry. I’ve been to several.

However, to share what I’ve learned, I’ve live tweeted several events as @FrankCatalano and taken detailed notes, based in part on those tweets, for two conferences at the nexus of education technology: the Ed Tech Industry Summit from the Software and Information Industry Association, and the Content in Context Conference from the Association of Educational Publishers.

You can find my SIIA Ed Tech Industry Summit notes here, and my AEP Content in Context Conference notes here as PDF files. For future reference, all notes will be archived on the Conference Notes page.

Now on to summer.

Update 7/8/10: I’ve added exhibit notes from ISTE 2010, in previous years known as the National Educational Computing Conference and now sporting the name of its sponsoring organization, the International Society for Technology in Education.

While the conference sessions at this ed tech event are generally well-documented by others, these ISTE 2010 notes focus on trends and observations about ed tech products and technologies shown in the exhibit hall.

Interested in what Amazon.com, Google and Rochester Institute of Technology’s Open Publishing Lab think about the future of learning platforms for students and teachers? The Association of Educational Publishers has posted a podcast (or an “audiocast,” since there’s no subscription) to the AEP Summit general session I moderated in June, “Learning Platforms for the 21st Century and Beyond.”

In it, Jeff Keltner of Google (responsible for Google Apps in the education market), Laura Porco of Amazon.com (director of Kindle Books), and Michael Riordin of the Rochester Institute of Technology (co-director of the Open Publishing Lab) discuss and debate what technologies and platforms education companies need to consider now.

After all, anyone who is 32 years old or younger — student, teacher, or administrator — has never known life without the relatively inexpensive, mass-produced personal computer. The Apple II was released in 1977, and the original IBM PC in 1981. Even the Web browser is Sweet Sixteen.

This panel was PowerPoint-free, so it’s 1:16 of pure discussion. Download the audiocast as an MP3 file, and check out a session description and bios of the panelists. An official summary was added later at the AEP blog. You’ll also find audiocasts and presentation files for other sessions of interest at what was, overall, a great AEP Summit. A once-live Twitter stream @FrankCatalano (#AEP09 or #AEP) is here. (Note: As of January 2018, all links to the AEP materials unfortunately no longer work and have been removed.)

At next month’s Association of Educational Publishers Summit in Washington, D.C., I’ll be calling on my tech background to moderate the closing keynote session, “Learning Platforms for the 21st Century and Beyond.” This PowerPoint-free 90 minutes will include Laura Porco of Amazon’s Kindle book division, Jeff Keltner of Google’s application division and Michael Riordan of the Open Publishing Lab at Rochester Institute of Technology.

The panelists will address, at the outset, why learners need new platforms, and there will likely also be brief demos. The objective? Helping education publishers understand the landscape of technology-based learning platforms and how to successfully make the transition in terms of tools, content, business models and even the approach to how what they create is used.

Should be a fun June 12th, town-hall style discussion. I plan a no-nonsense, no-more-tears approach.

It’s a curious side effect of the combination of digital learning products and No Child Left Behind accountability demands: It seems nearly every new or revised digital K-12 education product has embedded assessment.

Whether that’s a good thing — for students, teachers, parents or the industry — is the subject of a panel session I’m moderating next week at the Software and Information Industry Ed Tech Industry Summit in San Francisco. Panelists Bob Ginn of Century Consultants/ASM Research, Sue Koch of AutoSkill International and Mike Patterson of Curriculum Advantage will tackle the issue in a PowerPoint-free zone. And we’ll start right off focusing on the benefits and risks of an “assessment everywhere” approach.

If you’ve never been, SIIA’s Ed Tech Industry Summit is the primary annual event for companies and executives who work in education technology. This year’s theme is “Building Toward the Vision K-20.” Perhaps the most fun? The CODiE Awards bash Tuesday night, when the ed tech professionals mix with their peers in the software and digital content industries. Look for the tall guy with dark hair, glasses, and tux.

I have just wrapped up my reponsibilities as a first-round judge in one of the longest-running, most prestigious award competitions in technology and education. And what entered companies go through in their efforts to avoid winning amaze me.

In the interests of protecting the clueless (or perhaps in this economy, resourceless), I won’t name the companies. Or even the competition. But if you’d like to waste your award entry money, you do so can very efficiently by following these three easy steps: Continue reading How not to win awards→

It’s an odd reflection on the bubble the tech industry lives in — and simultaneously a sobering commentary on tech adoption in the education market — that there is still discussion of blogs being “new” in 2009.

But inside the education industry, even among the largest players, there are debates about whether or when to blog. Pros and cons were dutifully outlined for an article I wrote for the Software and Information Industry Association’s new book, The Expert’s Guide to the K-12 School Market, Second Edition. You can find an excerpt that succinctly outlines the pros and cons of companies blogging on the Selling to Schools site.

The full article in the book also includes a nine-step checklist to follow before starting a company or product blog. And, as you’ll note, the pros and cons and checklist apply to any business — not just those in the education market.

With the official start of the holiday shopping season, are you tempted to buy a toy that’s both fun and educational for the tot?

Better focus on the fun. A fascinating piece in the UK newspaper The Guardian states that a government-funded study found — when it comes to three- and four- year old children — that high-tech preschool toys “are no more effective than traditional ways of introducing basic literacy and number skills.”